The new skills available faded into view on the page in front of Kass and she took in the information.

Haste - Level 1 - Uncommon - Active - Slightly increases movement and reaction speed.

Project Self - Level 1 - Rare - Active - Creates an image of the caster that cannot move.

Multishot - Level 1 - Rare - Active - Fire multiple arrows at a time.

Select One

“Do you know anything about the skill, project self? It says it’s rare but the description doesn’t make it sound like it’s very good.”

“I believe at later levels it can be quite useful. It still remains an image that cannot deal damage, but it becomes an exact replica of the caster that can be used in many different ways.”

“How much later? What’s the highest level for skills anyways?”

“The projection won’t be able to move until level twenty or twenty-five, which could take a considerable amount of time to reach. Also, I do not know the highest level that can be achieved. I know of some skills that cease at level ten, while others have climbed well above forty or even fifty.”

“Hmm...so when skills level up do they always get stronger? My barrier leveled up but nothing changed in the description.”

“According to my knowledge, yes. Skill descriptions will change based on your personal knowledge and lore.”

“Ha,” she laughed, “is that another way of saying I have a small brain?”

“You seem self conscious to the size of your brain, I did not intend to offend you with my statement earlier.” Kass was surprised to hear something close to an apology from the blade.

“Oh that was meant to be a joke. I’m over it, I wasn’t really upset in the first place.” she dropped the subject and moved back to a more important topic.

“So I’m thinking Haste would probably be my best choice right now. Fighting that dual wielding guardian was almost too much, but maybe with a little extra speed it would have been easier.”

“Haste is a strong choice. I’ve known of great warriors that possessed this skill.”

She double checked her options before deciding. Multishot would be pretty awesome if I had a bow, but I don’t. Might never see one. Project image could be really strong but that might take time. Time that I might not have. Haste seems like it could be pretty powerful and is something that can help me now.

She nodded her head and decided to go with that. “Haste it is.” She mentally selected and confirmed the option.

Skills

Illuminate

Level 3

Common

Active - 2 mana per minute

Range: 30 yards

Create a small sphere of light.

Identify

Level 1

Rare

Active - No cost

Allows you to gain more information about identifiable objects.

Dash

Level 2

Uncommon

Active - 50 Mana per use

Range: 6 yards

When used, allows you to move quickly to a desired location.

Barrier

Level 2

Uncommon

Active - 100 mana per use

Range: Self

Creates an ablative shield that envelopes your body, protecting you from physical damage.

Heightened Senses

Level 2

Uncommon

Passive - No cost

Increases awareness and reaction time.

Haste

Level 1

Uncommon

Active - 50 mana per use

Range: Self

Duration: 2 Minutes

Increases reaction and movement speed by 10%.

Ten percent, it actually tells me how much this time. Ten percent is pretty good for level one.

“Now to gamble…” Kass navigated to the correct screen and spent the available class point. She watched the red and silver colors form into dice once more and then collected all three in her hand. “Come on luck, I really need you on my side right now,” she whispered.

She cast the dice and watched as they tumbled around. When they settled she found no matches. Damn. The cubes melted away and were replaced by words.

Class Skill Awarded for rolling King’s Ransom

“Wait, what? King’s Ransom?” There weren’t any matches though…

Reward

Gambler’s Way

“I… I don’t understand. I didn’t roll any matches. I don’t even remember what I rolled, but I know they weren’t matching.”

“You seem to have rolled a correct set special to your class.”

“I guess I did. Wish I could remember what symbols…”

“The broken crown, the hidden skull, the bloody axe.”

“Sometimes I forget you are a wealth of information. Next time you and I are going to have a chat about those symbols, okay?” Broken crown, hidden skull, bloody axe. Got it. “Alright, let’s see. Gambler’s Way. No description...” Kass flipped the page to reveal her overview and found the reward listed under her skills. She quickly read the information.

Gambler’s Way

Level 1

Unique

Class Skill

Active - 25 mana per use

Range: Self

Duration: Specified

Roll the dice to gain a random buff or debuff.

Hmm, buff or debuff. So like something that makes me stronger or weaker? I should probably test this a lot before I use it during a fight... “We might be having that conversation right now actually. I think it might be important for this new skill.”

“This class is very peculiar. It strays far from what is considered normal. How much information about these dice do you desire? My knowledge is outdated, but it seems to still be relevant. ”

“Enough to understand what’s going on when I roll them?”

“Very well,” the blade spoke and then paused for a second. “The game was called Skant. It was a simple yet popular way of gambling. There are three dice, each with the same six faces. The broken crown, the harvest moon, the fool’s hand, the knight’s vow, the bloody axe, and the hidden skull.

“Each player would roll at the same time and then compare. The one with the strongest roll wins. Three matches beat two, and two beat no matches, unless a certain combination set was rolled like King’s Ransom or Deadman’s Wish. These were considered stronger than most rolls, only beat by three skulls or three crowns.”

“So each set of three were worth a different amount of points?”

“Yes. Skulls beat all, then crowns. If no combination was rolled, knights were next, then moons, axes, and lastly, fool’s hand.”

“How many combo sets are there?”

“Three. King’s Ransom, Deadman’s Wish, and Liar’s Folly,”

“Do you think these same rules affect what I roll?”

“It seems to follow them considering you rolled King’s Ransom.”

“Alright, I think I understand. Thanks Whisper. There would be so many things I wouldn’t know how to do without you here.”

“Thank you for saving me, Kassandra.”

“Well we aren’t out of here yet, haha,” she laughed awkwardly, not sure what else to say. When no reply from the blade came, she decided to try out this new skill of hers.

Mana drained away at the mental command to cast the spell and three dice instantly fell to the ground in front of her.

Axe, moon, moon. She noticed.

A window popped up in the corner of her vision by her resources and she focused on it.

Buff Gained: Intelligence +2, Cast speed increased by 15% - Duration: 10 Minutes

“Interesting…” she mumbled. “Now what if I cast it again?” She did, and watched the dice fall again.

Knight, crown, axe.

She looked at the same window and saw the information had changed.

Buff Gained: +5% Stamina Regen - Duration: 4 Minutes

So they don’t stack. Guess that would’ve been too strong. She checked her stats, just to be sure of her assumption, and found that her intelligence was back to its normal amount. “This is going to be interesting to use during combat... Do you think it’s worth it even with the chance of getting a debuff?”

“I do not know,” replied the sword.

“I wonder if I can clear a debuff by casting it again…”

Kass spent the next several minutes casting the skill over and over again. With it only costing twenty-five mana, it wasn’t too much of a drain, and she thought it was worth it to test her theory.

Finally after thirteen tries, she found her debuff.

Fool’s, skull, fool’s.

Debuff Gained: -18% movement speed, Drains 12 mana per minute - Duration: 5 minutes

“Yeah that could easily get me killed. Hmm,” she slowly put a hand to her chin, thinking over the different possibilities. I just hardly know anything about this skill. Like what is the best buff or what is the worst? How long will it take me to figure that out? What if it decided to drain my health by twelve every minute for ten minutes, or twenty!

“Ugh,” she sighed, slapping her face into her hand. The movement felt slightly off and then she remembered she was now almost twenty percent slower. “This sucks.”

She tried casting Gambler’s Way again, but nothing happened. She tried again, twice, and then gave up, now aware that she could not remove a debuff as easily as she had hoped.

Kass used the remaining time to test her movements with the debuff active, shadow boxing and running side to side. It was a weird sensation to be moving her body the same as she always did, but then have it arrive later than she expected. After the full five minutes had passed, she watched the debuff disappear and instantly felt the difference in speed. I do not like that at all…

“I’ll have to use that skill sparingly for awhile, I think. Until I understand it better.”

“I agree with your decision.”

“Think we can get out of here now?” she asked as she moved back towards the door. She pushed and pulled again, but it still didn’t move. It didn’t even shudder from her attempts. “Guess that’s a no.”

She looked around the room for any other options. She saw a few chunks of stone missing from the walls where the hammer had struck, but other than that the only way out that she could see were the stairs in the far corner.

Unless I can use whatever the guardian’s were using. Kass walked over to the half destroyed box in the center of the room but only found a solid piece of stone floor at the bottom. Hmm. She walked over to the body of the hammer guardian and tried lifting the weapon that lay by its side.

After struggling a little, she hoisted it up to her waist and pinned it there. She was able to walk, albeit slowly, with the weapon held like this, and so she moved back over to the box. When she made it there she was breathing hard and sweat dripped down her face.

With a final heave, she dropped the heavy hammer onto the stone in the center of the cube. Nothing happened. Dammittttt. Did that all for nothing. She stayed there stooped over for a minute, waiting for her breath to come back and the blood in her arms to settle. They were feeling all tingly.

When she finally caught her breath, she stood and shook out her arms, which helped stop the tingles. “Guess there’s only one way to go. Down wherever those lead.” she pointed to the stairs and then felt silly, realizing she probably didn’t need to point for Whisper to know what she meant.

With a shrug, she checked to make sure her mana was back to full and that she hadn’t used too much stamina to move the heavy hammer. Satisfied, she moved towards the stairs.

“Yeah going down there won’t be creepy at all…” she looked into the darkness for a second and then sent her orb to investigate. The steps were large and uneven, built by hand for someone that was much taller than Kass. And they kept going, straight down and not curving in the slightest.

Her orb reached its max distance and stopped moving. “Still can’t see the bottom…” she moved away from the stairs a bit, feeling dizzy just looking into the seemingly endless hole. “It’s the only way, you’ve gotta go down there. You got yourself into this mess. Nobody told you to enter this damn building.”

Taking a deep breath, she started down, having to stretch her legs to reach each step. Some of the steps were worn smooth, making them a little slippery and causing Kass to move even slower, not wanting to fall. She may or may not have a history of falling down stairs.

I’m not going to fall. I’m not going to fall. I’ve got this. She almost resorted to scooting on her butt down each of them but talked herself out of it, reasoning it would take even longer to get down, and she really wanted to get down, just not by falling.

She kept moving, not knowing how much time had passed. Soon the light from the braziers above was just a small square above her, and still she couldn’t see the bottom. This would have been my worst nightmare a week ago...it’s still a close second.

More time passed and finally she spotted the bottom. The stairs ended abruptly and the ground leveled out, revealing a small passageway. She moved faster now, able to see the bottom. When she stepped off the last stair, Kass refrained from bending down and kissing the blessed floor. She probably would have had she not been even deeper underground in a random, let alone dangerous, crypt.

A short rest later, she drew Whisper from her back, and began to make her way through the tunnel. It curved in a complete U before coming to a closed stone doorway that blocked the way.

Kass took one look at the door and was instantly mad. “No, uh-uh. Nope. I’m not doing that.”

Set in the stone of the closed door were four slots, each one in the form of a weapon. Four specific weapons. Two large swords, a flail, and a big, big hammer.